MYSTERIES: A big blast, Icelandic intrigue and Christmas

Det. Insp. Tom Tyler leaves his usual patch in the Shropshire countryside in November 1940 to help with a big-city case.

Tyler is seconded to work with Birmingham police on an investigation into a deadly explosion at a munitions factory.

Tyler, haunted by family turmoil and missing his lover while she is away on a mission, probes what could have been a tragic accident or an act of sabotage.

The list of possible candidates, if it were an inside job, is a long one. Among those under scrutiny are the Endicott factory’s largely female workforce, Communist sympathizers on the shop floor, a local gangster and an American filmmaker with an ulterior motive.

This is the second in a trilogy by Toronto author Maureen Jennings, best known for the Det. William Murdoch mysteries, which have been made into a TV series. The book’s title has a seasonal tie-in, since it comes from a line in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

Besides having her country detective in an urban setting, Jennings uses this work to delve into the social history of the wartime munitions industry and the female labour force that emerged.

The novel illustrates how difficult and hazardous the job was, as if trying to survive the Blitz wasn’t bad enough.

Well-crafted characters are another Jennings hallmark and this novel has many. The story is told from the perspective of several men and women, both inside and outside the factory.

Readers have the inside edge on who the suspects are and start to connect the dots before Tyler does. We remain a step ahead of the police through much of the novel, although Jennings keeps readers guessing who the culprit is, thanks to a surprise or two along the way.

This novel also has a television tie-in. Jennings’s work helped inspire the Global TV series Bomb Girls.

Black Skies by Arnaldur Indridason (Harvill Secker, $22)

The year is 2005, Iceland’s economy is booming and Reykjavik detective Sigurdur Oli agrees to look into an alleged blackmail scheme at the request of a friend.

The policeman’s unofficial probe takes a sudden turn when he arrives at the home of the couple behind the scheme and finds the woman beaten unconscious and a suspect fleeing on foot.

Oli insists on remaining involved in the case, even though his friend and some influential people may be involved.

To find out whether the investigation will get too close for comfort, the Icelandic officer follows leads that take him from biker hangouts to the halls of the country’s banking establishment.

Arnaldur Indridason shines a light on a secondary character in his eighth novel to be translated into English. The usual protagonist, Erlunder, remains away for a second novel. (The last book, Outrage, focused on a female officer, Elinborg.)

Siggy, as Oli is nicknamed, is a mundane, not-that-likable character. He is a self-centred loner who doesn’t hide his disdain for the criminals and low-lifes he is forced to deal with every day.

His personal relationships are also complicated, with his aging parents being divorced and his estranged girlfriend ready to move on.

It is through the detective’s eyes that we see Iceland’s rapid-fire growth and the rumblings about skyrocketing debt, both harbingers of the banking collapse that followed.

The dealings Oli has with wealthy bankers whom he regards as greedy are in sharp contrast to the social misfits and outcasts he also has contact with.

A secondary plot thread involving a mysterious man plotting a horrible form of revenge fits in with the gloomy atmosphere and focus on the downtrodden.

If Oli thinks he has got his hands full here, just wait until Erlunder gets back and sees how his underling has been operating.

Eleven Pipers Piping by C.C. Benison (Doubleday, $29.95)

Father Tom Christmas is about to attend his first Robbie Burns dinner in the English town of Thornford Regis and he is not looking forward to haggis.

While a January storm rages outside, a small group of men make merry inside the village hotel.

The party is interrupted by the arrival of an elderly woman looking for lodging. Then festivities grind to a halt when the hotel’s owner, Will Moir, goes missing.

He is found soon after in the hotel’s tower, dead of an apparent heart attack.

Christmas, who prefers to be called Tom, is the first to learn that Moir may have been poisoned. He is shaken by the killing, which brings back memories of his wife’s murder.

There are suspects and motives aplenty, which the crime possibly being linked to recent events or ones rooted in the village’s history. And it may take a man of the cloth to figure out which it is.

This is the second of a series of Christmas-themed clerical mysteries by Benison, a pen name for Winnipeg author Doug Whiteway.

Christmas is still adjusting to life in a rural Devon parish, having moved there a year earlier from the city with his young daughter. The village, with its mix of old-fashioned traditions and daunting modern problems, is charming and eccentric, which is reflected in the tone of Benison’s writing.

Likewise, the townsfolk are a hodgepodge of newcomers and lifelong residents, including the slain innkeeper’s family. That makes for plenty of would-be murderers with deep secrets, past regrets and skeletons in the closet.

Christmas may dislike gossip, despite the speed at which the village rumour mill churns, but he is a pro at gathering information as he goes about his parish business.

What he doesn’t know, his housekeeper does, as conveyed in her hilariously misspelled letters to her mother.

At 475 pages, the book is long for a cosy read and shows it is possible to have too much of a good thing. The story becomes weighed down in the middle by too much village routine and clerical rumination.

Benison does get on track for the final 100 pages, with a thrilling ending to this winter’s tale.